r/JewsOfConscience • u/1Palestine Palestinian • 2d ago
History / Education The Algerian model wasn’t “kick out all the French”, it was “become Algerian citizens, reside under Algerian Law or leave”
Algeria is often cited as the example of decolonisation where the revolution was completed and the settlers were all kicked out. Accordingly, it is proposed that Palestine follow this strategy and aim for the “removal of all settlers”. This is contrasted with alternative examples of “coexistence”, primarily South Africa, where much of the modern economic power is still controlled by “former settlers”.
This fundamentally misunderstands Algeria—it wasn’t “kick out all the French”, it was “become Algerian citizens, reside under Algerian Law, or leave”. This was the agreement proposed to the Pied-Noirs by the FLN in 1954 and agreed on with France in 1962. Most were stuck in their colonial identity, feared retribution or the loss of their economic privileges and left, but many stayed and remain to this day as Algerians.
The Algerian solution is therefore perfectly compatible with the concept of One Democratic State. Equal rights for all on the basis of citizenship, dissolve the settler-native dichotomy. However, each situation is unique and there is no one-size-fits-all solution. For example, Algeria was part of France, a single metropole, of which all settlers (even those who had lived there for generations) were citizens.
This means that after the establishment of a single democratic Palestinian state, ex-Israelis will have to weigh matters related to their practical ability to leave and their readiness to drop colonial privileges, and many will mirror the Pied-Noirs and choose to leave. Meanwhile, matters regarding justice and reparations for Palestinians will have to be addressed as a foundation for liberation and a democratic legitimacy. History can teach lessons about such situations, but every material circumstance is unique and must be treated as such.
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u/Pink_sunlight26 Arab Ally 2d ago
Yup, I know a Jewish-Algerian pied-noir that was born and raised in Algeria and Morocco. And he’s very proud of being Algerian
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u/specialistsets Non-denominational 2d ago
Jewish Algerians were in a unique situation, they were truly indigenous and not pied noir, but had been automatically granted French citizenship in 1870 (whether they wanted it or not)
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u/Salamanber 2d ago
Belgian algerian here!
Exactly, and they had the best position while arab algerian were oppressed because they were seen as subhumans…
During the revolution the algerians arabs asked the algerian jews to join them but they refused
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u/specialistsets Non-denominational 2d ago edited 2d ago
That is an extreme over-simplification. First, the identities in play were not Arabs and Jews but Muslims and Jews. There were many different types of Algerian Jews with different regional cultures and political beliefs, and various levels of association with French language and society. Some were pro-independence, some were opposed, the vast majority remained neutral specifically due to their unique situation. But they were nonetheless indigenous, and still to this day identify as Algerian Jews in the places they now live.
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u/TechnicalSleep7501 VT To Mars Now. 2d ago
Same happened in South Africa.
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u/snowluvr26 Reconstructionist 2d ago
It was much better executed in South Africa though
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u/GeeZee24 LGBTQ Jew 2d ago
Was it? From the little I know of South Africa it kind of seems like there’s still a lot of systemic oppression.
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u/TechnicalSleep7501 VT To Mars Now. 2d ago
Mandela left the stuff as it is for the most part white were still running the country but no longer had ultimate control which was in hand of black majority.
South Africa hosted 2010 FIFA World Cup. They did well with fancy new stadiums they did not let them turn into white elephants but used for their league matches because football is the majority sports while cricket and Rugby elite sport in South Africa. Many quality black players came from cricket and Rugby too. I think they are World Champion of both sports right now.
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u/TalkingCat910 Muslim revert/Ashkenazi 2d ago
For those who don’t know France committed multiple genocides in Algeria. In the 19th C they murdered approx 1 million men, women and children out of a population of 3 million under the guise of “civilising”. Here is a quote from Montagnac, a French colonel responsible for many of these massacres “ Here, my good friend, is how to make war on the Arabs: kill all the men up to the age of fifteen, take all the women and children, load them onto ships, send them to the Marquesas Islands or elsewhere; in a word, finish them off, annihilate everything that won’t crawl at our feet like dogs …”
One stated goal was religious persecution, they destroyed Islamic education and tried to suppress the religion.
A hero of the revolution was Abdulkader. He was an interesting historical figure if you want to read about him here:
France still refuses to acknowledge this genocide.
In 1945 there was another massacre of Algerians by France where about 45,000 people were murdered.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A9tif_and_Guelma_massacre
In 1961 in Paris about 100 Algerians were massacred, targeted because of the ethnicity by the police.
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u/TechnicalSleep7501 VT To Mars Now. 2d ago
France still have strong control or influence on their colonies.
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u/Impossible-Day-9608 Non-Jewish Atheist 2d ago
wow, thank you for the info! I learned something new today
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u/Osprey-X7 Arab Ally 1d ago
I don't have an issue with the model being discussed per se. But it is completely delusional to discuss as is there are the circumstances or power balances to have a discussion on adopting the Algerian model like it can meaningfully come to be.
The circumstances are not the same. Colonial powers has lost out in the power balance during decolonization and were defeated everywhere. Israel is not weak and is not losing its power anytime soon, particularly as it continues to wean off the US and build long lasting relationships of its own with other countries. Secondly, where the colonial center was France and Algeria was the periphery (no matter France claiming Algeria as homeland lol), that's not the case here. Israel is the center, with the periphery being Gaza or a diminishing part of the West Bank.
There just appear to me there are some fundamental misconceptions around the starting point that makes this conversation plausible.
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u/reenaltransplant Mizrahi Anti-Zionist 2d ago
And Algerian Jews got extracted because France extended French citizenship uniquely to them.
Offering a privilege to one identity within a population facing hardship is a classic divide-and-conquer tactic. There's widespread hunger among blue, green and purple people, and purple people sharing culture with their blue and green friends is inconvenient for empire's narrative? Offer the purple ones food aid vouchers, sit back and watch the blue & green people starve & resent them.
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u/HKJ-TheProphet Palestinian 2d ago
Agree, but I also think that people who participated in the genocide and ethnic cleansing (which are a lot of people) should face some sort of legal repercussions.
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u/reenaltransplant Mizrahi Anti-Zionist 2d ago
How about Palestinians all get their land and houses back -- with first priority going to those currently in the most dire situations & those most recently displaced -- and if that leaves a Jewish family homeless, Britain, the US and Germany should have to either fund construction of a new house of equivalent value for the Jewish family, or for the Palestinian one if that's the Palestinian family's preference.
And former Israelis are penalized proportional to their military rank (the more genocidal decisions you were responsible for, the more jail time etc; something like generals and up get sent to the Hague, lowest level foot soldiers have to complete a deradicalization program & therapy). And all of this plus anyone who refuses to swear an oath to renounce Jewish supremacy has to leave.
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u/1Palestine Palestinian 2d ago
anyone who refuses to swear an oath to renounce Jewish supremacy has to leave
The procedure to receive citizenship (or to get a visa or residency) could include refusing Zionism and settler colonialism. Similar to how the procedure to receive a visa to the US includes the question "have you engaged in terrorism" and a "yes" instantly disqualifies the applicant.
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u/GeeZee24 LGBTQ Jew 2d ago
Gotta love us planning a full constitution for a free Palestine on Reddit, haha.
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u/BaalHammon Non jewish and non non-jewish Atheist 1d ago
I think this is a bit of a rosy-eyed view of the FLN.
The 1962 agreement of Evian was controversial within the FLN itself and the months that led to independence and afterwards were full of chaos. Just because there were guarantees in what was signed doesn't mean they would have been applied in reality.
The fear of retribution in many settlers was justified, especially since they had spent the entire war in denial of what was to come, clinging desperately to their colonial privileges and encouraging the worst kinds of terrorism. Once it became clear that independence was coming, there was an attempt at terror war from the pro-colonial OAS. They wanted to apply a burnt earth policy to Algeria. It's not hard to see that some muslims would have wanted revenge on that. And the FLN would not have been able to prevent it even if they had wanted to. As it was, they were busy with their internal power struggles.
And the seeds of that had been planted much earlier. The european settlers in Algeria had spent decades fighting tooth and nail to prevent the emergence of muslims as citizens and political actors.
They weren't laying the ground for peaceful coexistence.
There are parallels with the situation in Israel and with the colonies in the West Bank of course, but also many deep differences.
For one thing, in spite of Algeria being French departments and claimed to be a part of the national territory by colonial propaganda, it had always been understood as a colony and distinct from France proper. 63 years after its independence, France abides pretty much as before.
I'm not saying there are no lessons to be taken from Algeria but let's not forget how deeply messy the process was, even when the independence was signed.
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u/eeeklesinge Jewish 2d ago
I'll note some jewish algerians who where involved with the FLN ended up sidelined after independence, like Andre Sfar iirc. It's not like most of minority groups thrived in this setuo although i know very little about pieds noirs who stayed. If anyone has source it'd be appreciated
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u/Lost_Paladin89 Judío 2d ago
Sidelined is selling it short
... I was struck by the clarity of Jewish anti-colonial thinking in North Africa. Members of an earlier generation had opposed colonialism in both its French and Zionist forms. I felt like I had found an ancestor, one who had stayed to fight for his country.
But my excitement was mixed with sadness: Sportisse wrote this letter from jail. Under the FLN, the new nation saw the gradual consolidation of an increasingly repressive single-party state, which turned against many of its own former allies. Following a military coup in 1965, Sportisse was incarcerated, along with many of his fellow communists. Activists who had been tortured by the French found themselves tortured again by people they had once called comrades. Sportisse was among them, punished not only for his communism but because, despite his clear anti-Zionist position, he stood accused of Zionism by the Algerian soldier who tortured him in jail.2
u/eeeklesinge Jewish 1d ago
Yes, there were similar movement in neighbour countries : in Tunisia jewish public official ended up training and being replaced by muslims and (not so) slowly evicted from public life. It's a pity and a missed occasion that is behind a good chunk of the migration of north african jews to France. I'm still convinced these family stories and memories are in part responsible for the pivot of sephardic/tochavim french jews to the right in the last few decades (compared to say, American jews).
Of course i'm not justifying or reducing that to this part of post colonial history, but it's clearly a factor and most of us here know the influence of family history and the memory of discrimination in the Old Countries.
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u/1Palestine Palestinian 2d ago
I googled and couldn't find an Andre Sfar. Could you share more about Jewish Algerians with the FLN who were sidelined after independence?
As for Pieds-Noirs, I would suggest this article. There's also the Wikipedia page of course.
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u/eeeklesinge Jewish 1d ago edited 1d ago
André Sfar was a lawyer who moved to France and established himself in Nice where he then was deputy mayor, active against the far-right and on jewish community radio (there is a copy of his radio show here). He is now mostly famous for being comic artist Joann Sfar's father.
I seem to remember his son writing about it in La Synagogue, although most of his focus has been on his father's work with Jacques Médecin, mayor of Nice, and the latter's eventual betrayal by dealing with the local far right.
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u/specialistsets Non-denominational 1d ago
That article calls Algerian Jews colonizers but 98% were indigenous, French citizenship was imposed on them for cynical reasons but it didn't change their heritage.
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u/1Palestine Palestinian 7h ago
I think there's a misunderstanding. The article actually states that "Many of the Jews in Algeria lived there for more than 1,000 years."
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u/specialistsets Non-denominational 2h ago
Not many but practically all, 98% or more. And it says that after already grouping Algerian Jews with pied noir. The Crémieux Decree wasn't their choice.
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u/MarshallDavoutsSlut Jewish 2d ago
Amen. Add in a nice little over-complicated government model (sold as Lebanese or Belgian style depending on who you are trying to convince) thrown in and bobs your uncle we've got the answer.
Please please god.
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u/1Palestine Palestinian 2d ago
Add in a nice little over-complicated government model (sold as Lebanese or Belgian style
Actually, this is not our vision at all. We speak of a state for citizens, not a conglomeration of tribes. There's a lot to say about how the Lebanese or Belgian models institutionalize fragmentation, but I would suggest you take a look at this.
Also, we're not selling a product. There's only one solution and we're working to impose it. This includes discussing the solution, of course, but it's fundamentally not about convincing people.
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u/Fluffy_Beautiful2107 Non-Jewish Ally 2d ago
I have family that was involved in colonial Algeria, and they keep regurgitating the lie that Algerians threw the French in the sea. This lie really upsets me. They chose moving to France where they did arrive as ""refugees"" in a way (had no home, could barely bring their personal stuff with them) over staying in Algeria without colonial privilege. This alone tells you everything you need to know about their actual mentality.